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Bakker XLVI: Make Eärwa Great Again


Rhom

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1 hour ago, Sheep the Evicted said:

Hey, long time, intermittent lurker here. I actually hold the complete opposite view from you; how on earth can Koringhus be more right than Kellhus ? One has had twenty years to research and build his model of reality, the other had like two days

Maybe that made him closer to zero?

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1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

The answer is that Kellhus - and Koringhus - are privy to new information and evidence that others lack. The easiest explanation is that Kellhus never fully experienced what Mimara could do or see, whereas Koringhus did.

This is the most interesting part of the series to me. All three Dunyain, despite all their intelligence, arrive at different conclusions, why ?

Moe blinded himself and according to Kellhus he went down a dead end early. Bad Luck. But im not sure how being deprived of his sight alone was enough to make him come to an entirely different view than Kellhus. I actually think its more likely that Moe's model of reality was pretty much correct, he got the big picture, but he decided to go along with the consult while Kellhus wants something else.

Koringhus was the most talented of the three yes but he makes mistakes - landed only 99 out of 100 stones - and his madness was growing worse. He was looking for a way out and when something promising presented itself he took it. I think the point of his chapters was to introduce us to Zero but it wasn't the whole truth. No way he saw everything in just two days, he didnt really even get a handle on sorcery.

 

One interesting difference between Moe and his descendants is that they love; Kellhus clearly loves Esme as much as he's able to, and Koringhus clearly does the same for his son who loves so much he's defective. Because its so cheesy, and soppy, i think it will prove important in the future.

 

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19 minutes ago, Callan S. said:

Maybe that made him closer to zero?

Well, by his own likening, "Loss was advantage. Blindness was insight, revelation."  Interestingly, loss is what Koringhus has and blindness what Moe had.  What does Kellhus have?  Certainly none of "Surrender. Forfeiture. Loss … At last he understood what made these things holy."  So, it is plausible that Koringhus and Moe have more right than Kellhus does.  Part of this might be what is Kellhus' undoing, he thinks he can "win" via knowledge and power, when it is just the opposite that is the linchpin.

I think the key is that they all had separate pieces of the puzzle, I think part of what makes our task of figuring it out so difficult: all three are both right and wrong, just about different things.

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2 hours ago, .H. said:

Part of this might be what is Kellhus' undoing, he thinks he can "win" via knowledge and power, when it is just the opposite that is the linchpin.

Well, that'd tie in with Serwe being a cypher for the series. She was pretty oblivious.

 

Sheep, he kept the hundredth stone. It was the one he gave to his son before his leap. And the one his son used (or so I guess) to get the skin spy off his trail.

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1 hour ago, Callan S. said:

Sheep, he kept the hundredth stone. It was the one he gave to his son before his leap. And the one his son used (or so I guess) to get the skin spy off his trail.

Love....the one things Koringhus couldn't deny the boy. Love was what saved the boys life, as you said by getting rid of SS Serwe.

I'm always conflicted that Moe or Koringhus could possibly understand more than Kellhus. Yet, as Kalbear said, what would be the point of his revelations? One thing, Kellhus did experience loss when on the Circumfix. The loss of the woman he truly loved.

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30 minutes ago, Michael Seswatha Jordan said:

Love....the one things Koringhus couldn't deny the boy. Love was what saved the boys life, as you said by getting rid of SS Serwe.

I'm always conflicted that Moe or Koringhus could possibly understand more than Kellhus. Yet, as Kalbear said, what would be the point of his revelations? One thing, Kellhus did experience loss when on the Circumfix. The loss of the woman he truly loved.

I don't believe for a second that he loved Serwe. He might have loved Esme - though citation fucking needed for that one - but Serwe was always a tool and a goad against others, specifically Cnaiur. 

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3 hours ago, Kalbear said:

I don't believe for a second that he loved Serwe. He might have loved Esme - though citation fucking needed for that one - but Serwe was always a tool and a goad against others, specifically Cnaiur. 

Reread the Circumfix scene and see if you don't have a different opinion. He was going mad because someone like her could die. It's one of the deepest scenes in the book. I disagree wholeheartedly. 

ETA: her death, ergo, the death of a loved one is what made him go mad. I can backtrack and say I'm wrong on many things, this is one I will always stand by. His love for Serwe and the realization of her innocence meaning absolutely nothing is what drove Kellhus mad.

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3 hours ago, Michael Seswatha Jordan said:

He was going mad because someone like her could die. It's one of the deepest scenes in the book. I disagree wholeheartedly. 

ETA: her death, ergo, the death of a loved one is what made him go mad. I can backtrack and say I'm wrong on many things, this is one I will always stand by. His love for Serwe and the realization of her innocence meaning absolutely nothing is what drove Kellhus mad.

I don't think he loved her but I agree that her death affected her far more than a worldborn death would normally affect a Dunyain.

I think it's more that he broke (like Koringhus though his was more permanent), his Dunyain composure was shaken by the pressure of the circumfixion and the death of Serwe. His passions overwhelm him but this allows him to have a breakthrough. He sees the No-God and when he finally comes down from the tree he has seen further in the probability trance. Moenghus admits that his probability trance could only see upto a crisis point. Kellhus goes beyond this crisis point and thus becomes "more than Dunyain". 

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16 hours ago, Kalbear said:

I don't believe for a second that he loved Serwe. He might have loved Esme - though citation fucking needed for that one - but Serwe was always a tool and a goad against others, specifically Cnaiur. 

Yeah, it's pretty obvious that he has no use for love.  We get his POV so many times that I find it odd that anyone could have that opinion.  The only care he truly has is of the shortest path.  Serwe, Esme, his children, his generals, Akka, Moe.... literally everyone he comes in contact with is all an effort to complete the shortest path; and all will be sacrificed in order to reach it.

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14 hours ago, Michael Seswatha Jordan said:

Reread the Circumfix scene and see if you don't have a different opinion. He was going mad because someone like her could die. It's one of the deepest scenes in the book. I disagree wholeheartedly. 

ETA: her death, ergo, the death of a loved one is what made him go mad. I can backtrack and say I'm wrong on many things, this is one I will always stand by. His love for Serwe and the realization of her innocence meaning absolutely nothing is what drove Kellhus mad.

We've discussed this many many times, so you know my position well.  Kellhus certainly does experiance many of his "vestigial passions" to varring degrees at times.  Yet, no where in the books do we see Kellhus moved by any of them.  In a circular way, we arrive to Theli's summation of the man Kellhus, "a place of maximal convergence."  Indeed, I think this is what we see of Kellhus on the Circumfix, convergence, but not to a "place of Love" but to a place beyond it.

Kellhus suffers for the first real time.  Kellhus loses for the first real time.  But through both, he is "reborn" of sorts.  The Circumfix is not much more than a parallel to Jesus' cross.  What pains Kellhus most though, while he hangs there?  It isn't his wounds, because he never mentions them.  It would seem, at a glace that it is Serwë's death, but is it really?  Let's look at what is going through his mind:

Quote
Serwë! Breathe girl, breathe! I command it!
I come before you. I come before!
Bound skin-to-skin to Serwë.
What have I … What? What?
A convulsion of some kind.
No … No! I must focus. I must assess …
Unblinking eyes, staring down black cheeks, out to the stars.
There’s no circumstance beyond … No circumstance beyond …
Logos.
I’m one of the Conditioned!
From his shins to his cheek, he could feel her, radiating a cold as deep as her bones.
Breathe! Breathe!
Dry … And so still! So impossibly still!
Father, please! Please make her breathe!
I … I can walk no farther.

So, what is really bothering him here?  Sure, the fact that she is dead, but he is asking, what have I done?  In other words, what am I doing?  He is wracked by doubt, not remorse.  He laments that he can't go further, that he failed the journey, not because Serwë is dead, but because he thinks he has made a mistake.  He despairs, invokes the Logos to refocus, and after:

Quote
Focus! What happens?
All is in disarray. And they’ve killed her. They’ve murdered my wife.
I gave her to them.
What did you say?
I gave her to them.
Why? Why would you do this?
For you …
For them.
Something dropped within him, and he tumbled into sleep, cold water rinsing bruised and broken skin.
Dreams followed. Dark tunnels, weary earth.

Now, he has despaired and doubted.  He has petitioned, in vain, and refocused.  He now discourses with himself, Logos with the Legion (vestigial passions).  The Logos informs him that it sacrificed Serwë so he could succeed.  So he could understand.  Once he embraces this, he is beyond the remorse.  He goes further only then.

So, did he have some sort of affection of Serwë?  Sure, but he admits to himself he sacrificed her.  His Conditioned mind is well beyond love.  Serwë is nothing but a tool to Kellhus the Conditioned.  And it is that Kellhus which prevails.  Kellhus the man of human emotion is nothing but an aspect of the shackled Legion.

So, later, does Kellhus love Esmenet?  Maybe at some "vestigial" level, sure.  But Kellhus the place, Kellhus the Conditioned, Kellhus "who is more," is beyond any feelings, as he says himself, "love is for lesser souls."  He is a cog in the machine that is the Thousandfold Thought, even as he is the engine.  The Thought isn't predicated on feelings, it's the fuction of calculation.

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Something completely random... Wasn't one of the skin-spies with the Skin-eaters called Soma? Because I looked up it's meaning on google for something unrelated,

soma1
ˈsəʊmə/
noun
noun: soma; plural noun: somas
  1. 1.
    BIOLOGY
    the parts of an organism other than the reproductive cells.
  2. 2.
    the body as distinct from the soul, mind, or psyche.
 
soma2
ˈsəʊmə/
noun
HINDUISM
noun: soma
  1. an intoxicating drink prepared from a plant and used in Vedic ritual, believed to be the drink of the gods.
    • a plant used to make soma.
      plural noun: somas; noun: soma plant; plural noun: soma plants
    • (in Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World ) a narcotic drug which produces euphoria and hallucination, distributed by the state in order to promote content and social harmony.
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6 hours ago, aceluby said:

Yeah, it's pretty obvious that he has no use for love.  We get his POV so many times that I find it odd that anyone could have that opinion.  The only care he truly has is of the shortest path.  Serwe, Esme, his children, his generals, Akka, Moe.... literally everyone he comes in contact with is all an effort to complete the shortest path; and all will be sacrificed in order to reach it.

Yeah, I've never even heard the idea that he loved Serwe before. I find it, well, I strongly disagree, I don't want to start fights.

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Yea, maybe I just read it differently than you guys. No biggie. That's why each and everyone of us come away from reading a book with different experiences. 

I felt that the scene (@H, quotes it's for us) shows Kellhus going mad from the loss of Serwe. Also, @H how can you attribute the "voice" to the legion within when you attribute it to the No-God a paragraph before? The "Voice" is the same across the entirety of the text. It's seems it's someone (maybe Kellhus, Koringhus or Moe) who is directing/guiding Kellhus. You know, with how time works on Earwa and all that. You guys say that he does indeed feel emotions but doesn't actually on them.... I think this is hogwash. He has started a Great Ordeal to defeat the Consult and whatever else his plans are to end damnation (I assume). And, this was all part of him losing Serwe on the Circumfix. Whatever Kellhus's ultimate plan is, is for people like Serwe. Sorry, this is a love story at heart. 

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If this is a love story it's a love story where the people who love don't have a clue what love is. And that's consistent; we see how toxic Akka's 'love' for Esme is and how horrible he becomes for what his obsession is, we see the blindness love does with Esme towards her children, her desperate need for love completely shielding her from  the monsters her children are. So yeah, if it's a love story it's a story of people who don't accept others for who they are but instead constantly project on to them whatever they need to be, Kellhus included.

As to this:

Quote

He has started a Great Ordeal to defeat the Consult and whatever else his plans are to end damnation (I assume).

It's a stretch to say he's done this for love, but it's also a stretch to say he's done this at all. His own internal dialog about mastering all circumstance in TGO belies this. It's a lot of assumptions you're building that castle on. 

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I think he was moved by Serwe's death. Moved enough to go mad, as the text puts it. Maybe she was so empty, as one might put it, that he poured too much of himself into her when controlling her. Put too much into the tool, then saw himself broken with it - couldn't deny it when he was strapped to it.

That or thought it was doing all this 'for them' but couldn't square the whole deal with her death and went mad.

I mean, he may well just be randomlol now. No actual plan - just capable of doing very big activities even when mad, when we usually associate madness with the very small activity of sitting and rocking back and forth. Maybe Kellhus is just rocking back and forth, big time.

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